The Printorium

I've found what I want to do when I grow up! I went to The Printorium's exhibition of a selection of their graphic work from the Harry Potter films (which I adore) at the weekend. I wish I could have taken it all home with me, the prints themselves were beautifully designed. As was the way they were presented. Go studio Minalima! 'Beedle The Bard' and the 'Electric Shock Shake' prints were my favourites (everything was my favourite to be honest!).

Perpetual Plastic

Loft treasure! I like the disappearing type and the halftone border. Keep it simple. 

...But if they were running out of catchy names when this was made we must be completely lost by now.

O P T I C I A N S

C

L E 

V E R

Eye very much likes this Bristol opticians sign. 

Banksy and Circles

This is a joke, not a truth. OK?

Oz & Thatcher

So the news this week, Margret Thatcher has passed away, our first and only female PM so far, and she has been (dis)honoured by the meteoric rise through the top 40 of the song 'ding dong the witch is dead' from The Wizard of Oz. Once again showing the power facebook groups can exert over the British music chart, previously groups on the social networking site have been formed to prevent another mediocre x-factor christmas number one for example.

Speaking very generally... everyone knows of the yellowbrick road, the ruby slippers, cowardly lion and that 'there's no place like home' in a similar way that everyone knows the name Margret Thatcher.  Both the former and the latter are cultural monoliths, a part of our social and popular history, and it could be said that both have had positive and negative effects (I still have nightmares about flying monkeys).

The Wizard of Oz will be forever remastered from book to film to musical (wicked) spin off to film again (Oz the Great and Powerful), i'm sure i've skipped a couple of incarnations in there already, I can see it remaining relevant, popular and current for a long time to come, it is a good story after all. In a similar way that the politics and actions of Mrs Thatcher's government will resonate through modern politics for many many decades to come, the good and bad aspects of her achievements serving both as cautionary tales; the issue of poll tax for example, and as a role-model to follow as she showed women that the sky really is the limit.   

electrifying

Children's book on electricity from 1960, I rescued this from the bin because the colours are fantastic (and i'm a hoarder, but mostly because of the colours), looking at it a bit closer the technology on the cover has mostly been superseded, the modern version would be all ipads and laptops and flat screens and hover cars (maybe that's too far), actually the modern version would probably be a webpage or a kindle book.

Kaleidoscope quilt

(Urban Outfitters 'Kaleidoscope' Quilt)

(closer look)

My honourary auntie Chris is a quilting guru, she taught me the basics and has some serious skills - her stitches are so neat it is untrue and she can put colours together beautifully. This craft appeals to me because of its use of simple shapes and tone to make a more complex and beautiful pattern; from a basic geometric shape you can create anything, I love how you can build up a square (or any shape) block to make a pattern- like pixels on a screen. When I see an illustration with a lot of tessellating triangles (very in vogue in the last couple of years) it makes me think of quilting. 

And it is not just the shapes and pattern that make a design work, colour and tone are just as important, so for all that quilting is a craft (and 'craft' is a bit of a dirty word in the world of design) it can involve as much design as you like. I posted this urban outfitters quilt because I think the colour combination is fantastic, little bit Scandinavian perhaps? It works and it is a lot less fussy than a lot of examples you would see in a quilting book.